To Be Real

To Be Real Synopsis

To Be Real: Truth and Racial Authenticity in African American Standup Comedy examines Black standup comedy over the past decade as a stage for understanding why notions of racial authenticity--in essence, appeals to "e;realness"e; and "e;real Blackness"e;--emerge as a cultural imperative in African American culture. Ethnographic observations and interviews with Black comedians ground this telling, providing a narrative arc of key historical moments in the new millennium. Readers will understand how and why African American comics invoke "e;realness"e; to qualify nationalist 9/11 discourses and grapple with the racial entailments of the war, overcome a sense of racial despair in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, critique Michael Richards' ["e;Kramer's"e;] notorious rant at The Laugh Factory and subsequent attempts to censor their use of the n-word, and reconcile the politics of a "e;real"e; in their own and other Black folks' everyday lives. Additionally, readers will hear through audience murmurs, hisses, and boos how beliefs about racial authenticity are intensely class-wrought and fraught. Moreover, they will appreciate how context remains ever critical to when and why African American comics and audiences lobby for and/or lampoon jokes that differentiate the "e;real"e; from the "e;fake"e; or "e;Black folks"e; from so-called "e;niggahs."e; Context and racial vulnerability are critical to understanding how and why allusions to "e;racial authenticity"e; persist in the African American comedic and cultural imagination.